Over the weeks and months to come, any readers here that don’t already know me will surely soon realize I have a real enthusiasm for Japanese cinema. This was probably instilled in me before I even realized it was happening, with everything from Nintendo and Sega, animation like Robotech, Voltron, and The Adventures of Unico, and my fascination with badly dubbed giant monster films like Godzilla and Rodan that played on the weekend afternoon Creature Feature’s when I was growing up. There’s just something I get from watching Japanese cinema that I don’t find anywhere else.

Two genres you won’t find anywhere outside of Japan is the samurai film, and a breed of exploitation dubbed Pinky Violence. Yes, there are other films from all over the world that stem from the same idea behind the Pinky Violence genre (girls kicking ass or getting revenge), but no one else can do it with the same style and panache as the Japanese can. These two genres are arguably my favorites from the Land of the Rising Sun, so the idea of putting them together makes a grown man like myself giddy with joy. Thanks to Bohachi: Clan of the Forgotten Eight, directed by exploitation legend Teruo Ishii, that idea has become reality.

Based on a manga from Kazuo Koike (Lone Wolf & Cub, Lady Snowblood), Bohachi: Clan of the Forgotten Eight focuses on Shiro, played excellently by Tetsuro Tanba (Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs, You Only Live Twice), a ronin swordsman who takes up mercenary missions. While this may pay the bills, he isn’t happy with life, feeling it’s the same hell death would be. So he tried to commit suicide by plunging into a river, but is saved by two prostitutes who work for the Bohachi clan. The Bohachi live by a code that discards the eight basic human emotions: conscience, loyalty, trust, shame, gratitude, belief in God, justice, and greed. All is not well in the Bohachi clan however, as their main source of income, torturing women into forced prostitution, is losing its profitability due to competition. They see Shiro as the possible solution to this problem, and send him off to silence the competition.

While this is definitely a chambara film in theme and setting, in Ishii’s hands, director of such family fare as Horrors of Malformed Men and Inferno of Torture, the sleaze factor is cranked to eleven with too many naked women to count, outrageous cinematography, and a ton of exploitive elements. While geisha and prostitution are quite prevalent in many samurai films, it’s generally a topic that’s quite subdued and elegant. In an ero-guro (aka erotic-grotesque…in other words, lots of sex and lots of violence) samurai film like this though, the prostitution element is exploited to the nth degree, with nearly every woman naked throughout much of the film. A number of these women are also trained assassins of the Bohachi. In one of the coolest scenes in the film, a group of these women are ambused by an assassin from another clan on their way back from killing two of his clansmen. What ensues is a battle for the ages, considering all of the woman are completely nude. Yes, Teruo Ishii is indeed a mad genius.

Like other Ishii films, and many Japanese chambara and exploitation films from the time, everything in the film is highly stylized. Wild colors, trippy lighting, and over-the-top sound effects really enhance the experience. Unlike a lot of Ishii’s films however, this film has a good amount of swordplay. Severed limbs are in abundance, as are one of my personal favorites, blood geysers. And for all the action junkies, the ending is phenomenal. It’s an orgy of opium-induced, tripped out violence that must be seen to be believed. Talk about a payoff!

While this is one of Ishii’s lesser works, it stands as one of the best examples of taking the samurai film into the realm of sleazy exploitation. While not perfect, Tetsuro Tanba’s awesome performance and the mass amounts of exploitive elements makes this one a completely fun watch. More adventurous viewers should definitely give this a shot.